WALNUT CREEK — Three people were hospitalized, and traffic brought to a crawl on one of the city’s busiest roads Sunday, when a person ran a red light that resulted in a three-car crash, police said.

All three were expected to be OK, and their injuries were considered minor, Walnut Creek police Sgt. Joe Donleavy said. Police did not say immediately how many people were inside the three cars.

According to Donleavy, a Honda Civic traveling east on Ygnacio Valley Road around 1:13 p.m. when it ran a red light at the intersection of San Carlos Drive, across from Heather Farm Park. That Honda collided with a Honda Fit traveling south on San Carlos, hit a pole, and veered across the center divide into the westbound direction of Ygnacio Valley. A Mercedes traveling in that direction nearly averted a head-on collision but still couldn’t avoid the Civic, Donleavy said.

The driver of the Mercedes, who asked not to be identified, said it was “borderline miraculous” that nobody was injured more severely.

“To run a red light right here this time of day, this is one of the busiest intersections in the area,” Donleavy said. “To have nobody injured terribly is a real blessing.”

Traffic on Ygnacio Valley Road came to a virtual halt. The road, a key artery in connecting East Contra Costa County with Interstate 680, often is congested in that area under normal circumstances. After the wreck, it took motorists 30 minutes to traverse a mile.

The scene was cleared by 2:30 p.m., but police said traffic was expected to remain slow through the afternoon.

Officers learned an ongoing dispute between two people led to a verbal exchange Wednesday morning, with the three people getting into a vehicle to pursue a man and his daughter in a second vehicle, who were able to get away at first